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Frank was a two-sport star while a student at St. Johns excelling in both baseball & B-ball.

His B-ball coach at St. Johns? Buck Freeman who would later become Frank's lifelong mentor, assistant and friend.

The winningest coach in St. Johns storied B-ball history? Percentage-wise it was Buck, not Frank or Louie Carnesecca. Freeman's teams won over 85% of their games over the nine-season span he coached them after being the team's star player as a student. Almost a decade later, Frank would coax his one-time coach out of retirement to help him resuscitate St. Johns' basketball fortunes. Indeed, the two friends were both NYC B-ball legends before they ever came south.

It's sad that the McGuire era at Carolina is almost forgotten by Carolina fans (unless you're an old fart). McGuire brought basketball to the south, first at North Carolina then to South Carolina, at a time when the northeast and UCLA were the basketball meccas.

I believe it has a lot to do with the way McGuire went out and the fact that his players have virtually nothing to do with Carolina anymore. I would really like to see Carolina bring back the former players on a frequent basis.

Frank was a two-sport star while a student at St. Johns excelling in both baseball & B-ball.

His B-ball coach at St. Johns? Buck Freeman who would later become Frank's lifelong mentor, assistant and friend.

The winningest coach in St. Johns storied B-ball history? Percentage-wise it was Buck, not Frank or Louie Carnesecca. Freeman's teams won over 85% of their games over the nine-season span he coached them after being the team's star player as a student. Almost a decade later, Frank would coax his one-time coach out of retirement to help him resuscitate St. Johns' basketball fortunes. Indeed, the two friends were both NYC B-ball legends before they ever came south.

Ive always heard Buck was a free throw teaching legend, and because of him our guys all shot great ft's

First, I am an old fart. Second, I was a part time bartender at Don's Lounge back in the days and I can say that Buck was an essential part of the success of the basket ball team. It was a glorious era for us Gamecocks. And now I get to revel in the greatness of several of our programs. Life is good for all of us!

It's sad that the McGuire era at Carolina is almost forgotten by Carolina fans (unless you're an old fart). McGuire brought basketball to the south, first at North Carolina then to South Carolina, at a time when the northeast and UCLA were the basketball meccas.

I believe it has a lot to do with the way McGuire went out and the fact that his players have virtually nothing to do with Carolina anymore. I would really like to see Carolina bring back the former players on a frequent basis.

Hard to say he brought b-ball to the South, nCarolina won 9 titles, 1 national title with an undefeated team and had a winning% of 73.3% before Frank arrived.....
Not just the way we treated McGuire but also Felton has a lot to do with the disconnect between the old and new as well as the fan base putting most of its eggs in the football basket....

Hard to say he brought b-ball to the South, nCarolina won 9 titles, 1 national title with an undefeated team and had a winning% of 73.3% before Frank arrived.....
Not just the way we treated McGuire but also Felton has a lot to do with the disconnect between the old and new as well as the fan base putting most of its eggs in the football basket....

9 titles? UNC is nowhere close to 9 titles. UNC was a good team before Frank but let's not exaggerate facts.

Ive always heard Buck was a free throw teaching legend, and because of him our guys all shot great ft's

Not just free throws, GU. Frank considered Buck to be the best shooting coach in the country, and gave him the task of giving the freshman class a shooting clinic each year. Watched several when I was a student.

Had a # of really good shooting guards(in part tks to Buck) like Harlicka, Roche, Dunleavy, Winters,Joyce & Peterson. Indeed, seems like John Roche may still hold the NBA record for made 3's in a quarter(9). John's jumper was unblockable because it was a fade-a-way.

But the best shooting guard I ever saw wear G&B was Billy Walsh, Roche's running mate John's soph year. The guy could kill it from the the arc at the top of the key and was so quick you almost couldn't stop him from getting it off. If memory serves, Bill averaged 13-14 ppg shooting about 44%. And I'll bet 95% of his shots were from beyond today's 3-point line.

Seems like Billy flunked out after his soph year. Does anyone know what ever happened to him?

It's sad that the McGuire era at Carolina is almost forgotten by Carolina fans (unless you're an old fart). McGuire brought basketball to the south, first at North Carolina then to South Carolina, at a time when the northeast and UCLA were the basketball meccas.

I believe it has a lot to do with the way McGuire went out and the fact that his players have virtually nothing to do with Carolina anymore. I would really like to see Carolina bring back the former players on a frequent basis.

Holderman is to blame for the way Coach McGuire went out, it was unfortunate. Holderman wanted the guy from Duke, whose name escapes me at the moment. Foster, Bill Foster. We were all angry with Holderman about that at the time because McGuire beat the other McGuire at Marquette that year if I remember correctly.

The old McGuire players are slowly but surely returning. Roche may not ever return, he's just that way, nothing personal. Dunleavy and Winters may not return - they can both be kind of snobs at times anyway and Winters always said we were dumb down here. But everyone else, including Joyce, returns regularly and will continue to do so. Joyce, English, Owens, Robboch, Traylor (I'm not sure if Danny has returned recently or not), Aydlette, McCarver, Casey Manning, Galloon. Bobby Cremins sort of crapped in his own drawers with a lot of us, but I'd still like to see him come back. We alienated Foster, right or wrong and, think about it, he did basically what GA Mangus did. Buck is dead, so is Bill Loving. Powell is NBA royalty these days. None of those three are coming back.

We've grown as a program over the years. We need to move on and love-on the guys that return but we need to develop a new tradition under Martin. Martin can take us places. He's got his warts, like all of us do, but they make him human and he's working on the anger management stuff.

Ive always heard Buck was a free throw teaching legend, and because of him our guys all shot great ft's

He made a video where he filmed Roche, McCarver and Joyce, all three who were considered perfect shooters from the line in terms of technique. (Remember, Adylette who was the master of the shot from the corner shot Rick Berry style from the line and was a particularly interesting case study to Buck.) But Buck made an 8mm slo-mo film of Roche, McCarver and Joyce having them all three shoot 100 free throws. 50 with a red, white and blue ABA basketball and 50 with a regular orange ACC/NCAA sanctioned basketball that had a piece of manila masking tape taped across the axis of one segment of the ball.

Then he counted the rotation of the ball in slo-mo and if I remember correctly the heavier NCAA ball rotated between 13 and 13.5 times off the finger tips of all three of his samples, while the lighter ABA ball rotated 14-15 times from the same three shooters. I'm referring from the time it left their fingers to the time it first passed the rim and entered the hoop of the basket of course.

Coach Freeman continued to break down arch patterns of all three shooters, release points, pre-shot dribbles, (or what he referred to as the golfer's wiggle from the free throw line), etc. He even noted that all three crossed themselves before taking their freethrows which was something you would never see today but was quite common for all of Frank's teams back in the day.

It was all quite something to behold. Gamecock basketball was feared, and I mean feared, in those days.

Holderman is to blame for the way Coach McGuire went out, it was unfortunate. Holderman wanted the guy from Duke, whose name escapes me at the moment. Foster, Bill Foster. We were all angry with Holderman about that at the time because McGuire beat the other McGuire at Marquette that year if I remember correctly.

The old McGuire players are slowly but surely returning. Roche may not ever return, he's just that way, nothing personal. Dunleavy and Winters may not return - they can both be kind of snobs at times anyway and Winters always said we were dumb down here. But everyone else, including Joyce, returns regularly and will continue to do so. Joyce, English, Owens, Robboch, Traylor (I'm not sure if Danny has returned recently or not), Aydlette, McCarver, Casey Manning, Galloon. Bobby Cremins sort of crapped in his own drawers with a lot of us, but I'd still like to see him come back. We alienated Foster, right or wrong and, think about it, he did basically what GA Mangus did. Buck is dead, so is Bill Loving. Powell is NBA royalty these days. None of those three are coming back.

We've grown as a program over the years. We need to move on and love-on the guys that return but we need to develop a new tradition under Martin. Martin can take us places. He's got his warts, like all of us do, but they make him human and he's working on the anger management stuff.

John Roche came back a few years ago for the players' reunion and both Dunleavy and Winters came back for the reunion this year. Only Owens has not been back, of the former greats.

Holderman is to blame for the way Coach McGuire went out, it was unfortunate. Holderman wanted the guy from Duke, whose name escapes me at the moment. Foster, Bill Foster. We were all angry with Holderman about that at the time because McGuire beat the other McGuire at Marquette that year if I remember correctly.

The old McGuire players are slowly but surely returning. Roche may not ever return, he's just that way, nothing personal. Dunleavy and Winters may not return - they can both be kind of snobs at times anyway and Winters always said we were dumb down here. But everyone else, including Joyce, returns regularly and will continue to do so. Joyce, English, Owens, Robboch, Traylor (I'm not sure if Danny has returned recently or not), Aydlette, McCarver, Casey Manning, Galloon. Bobby Cremins sort of crapped in his own drawers with a lot of us, but I'd still like to see him come back. We alienated Foster, right or wrong and, think about it, he did basically what GA Mangus did. Buck is dead, so is Bill Loving. Powell is NBA royalty these days. None of those three are coming back.

We've grown as a program over the years. We need to move on and love-on the guys that return but we need to develop a new tradition under Martin. Martin can take us places. He's got his warts, like all of us do, but they make him human and he's working on the anger management stuff.

John Roche has been back several times in the past 5 years and was even here last March for the 100 years of Gamecock basketball. In addition to that he calls into both main Gamecock radio stations for a interview at least a few times every year during basketball season. Out of all of the guys you listed he is by far the one that still the most involved with Gamecock basketball.

I got a chuckle from the guy that said that UNC went undefeated and won a national title before Frank came on the scene. The team that he was talking about was actually coached by McGuire - beat Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas team in triple overtime for the title. N. C. State had good teams under Everett Case but Frank came in and eclipsed Case's team and really established basketball at UNC. Frank left UNC for the NBA where he coached Wilt Chamberlain when he scored 100 points in a game.

UNC struggled after McGuire left but they stuck with their new coach - guy by the name of Dean Smith - and he eventually turned it around. South Carolina had a better program than UNC when we left the ACC, but fell off when we lost the natural ACC rivalries. Life as an Independent was not good for the Cocks.

John Roche has been back several times in the past 5 years and was even here last March for the 100 years of Gamecock basketball. In addition to that he calls into both main Gamecock radio stations for a interview at least a few times every year during basketball season. Out of all of the guys you listed he is by far the one that still the most involved with Gamecock basketball.

Yeah, he's been back several times. I was sitting ten feet in front of him at that press conference for Dave with Michelle Schmidt moderating.

He does not come back often and he will not be back anytime soon for a reunion until we start winning on a regular basis and challenging for championships and until he retires full time.

He is not the most involved, not even by a long shot. Kevin Joyce is far more involved, as is Alex English, Lyn Burkholder and others. John has done a few radio interviews over the years, but he does not do them three times a year, that's just a lie.

John is a great guy, I'm not knocking him. But as he stated in the press conference from four or five years ago, he's more about personal contacts than school loyalty. He lives in Denver (nice office in a nice downtown building btw) he played nine years in the ABA/NBA so he has far more connections there, and he's 2000 miles away. He's becoming more and more re-attached to us, but John was always the unemotional no-nonsense guy and he has not changed.

Starting next year he says he is going to try to make at least one game a year if his schedule permits. And I hear there are friends trying to convince him to retire here eventually, along the coast somewhere, but I doubt John is going to do that anytime soon until Jackie is ready to retire and until they do a lot more traveling around the world. The city of Denver loves them both and they are very connected there. He mentioned tennis, but he didn't mention how really good he is at tennis, or at least was when he did that press conference you posted at the age of 57. What was that, it had to be 2006, 2007 if I remember correctly so he is 64 now and not playing as much tennis but still not completely retired.

You need to get your facts straight Florence. You seem to have a propensity for vagueness while claiming to know quite a bit more than you do IMHO.

I got a chuckle from the guy that said that UNC went undefeated and won a national title before Frank came on the scene. The team that he was talking about was actually coached by McGuire - beat Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas team in triple overtime for the title. N. C. State had good teams under Everett Case but Frank came in and eclipsed Case's team and really established basketball at UNC. Frank left UNC for the NBA where he coached Wilt Chamberlain when he scored 100 points in a game.

UNC struggled after McGuire left but they stuck with their new coach - guy by the name of Dean Smith - and he eventually turned it around. South Carolina had a better program than UNC when we left the ACC, but fell off when we lost the natural ACC rivalries. Life as an Independent was not good for the Cocks.

I think he's talking about the 1924 team that went undefeated and was awarded the national championship by the Helms Foundation. They did win 15 SoCon titles (7 regular season, 8 tournament) before Frank McGuire got there. He's correct about their winning percentage before McGuire got there too. I think the guy knows what he was talking about, just wasn't able to explain his thoughts very clearly.